


A Left-Handed Form of Human Endeavor

by TheLastGoodGoldfish



Series: LoVe AU Week [2]
Category: Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1930s, F/M, LV AU WEEK, The Thin Man AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 09:49:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14017623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLastGoodGoldfish/pseuds/TheLastGoodGoldfish
Summary: Mrs. Veronica Echolls- formerly street-savvy private eye Ronnie Mars- has given up the rough and tumble life of a detective in order to live as a respectable high society wife. Now if only everyone else would believe it.(1930s Thin Man AU)LoVe AU Week- #5 - Another Time Period





	A Left-Handed Form of Human Endeavor

**Author's Note:**

> Really as much of a crossover fic as a period AU, but take it for what it is: Logan and Veronica as Nora and Nick, respectively. Much of the plot and wit (such as it is) is therefore creditable to Dashiell Hammett.

December, 1934

 

Christmas Eve, the Echolls decided to have a few friends around to their suite at the Normandie for drinks and that sort of thing. Not much of the society folk were asked, as Mr. and Mrs. Echolls had already spent most of the last week dining with the Quinns and the Howards and a lot of dry “artists,” for whom Veronica had little patience and Logan had even less. But then Logan suggested they phone up some of Veronica’s friends from her days at the Trans-American Detective Agency, and word must have gotten out: the front desk was half beside itself calling up to the penthouse suite every six minutes, announcing the unorthodox parade of guests stomping through the lobby.

Veronica, performing her hostess duties and offering a tray of cocktails for Cliff McCormack’s perusal, caught a bit of Logan’s chat with the kid downstairs, “Never mind ringing up, just send them all along. Yes, yes—they’re all her friends.” He hung up the telephone and swallowed the rest of his rye, then picked up a bottle of champagne to top off the dwindling supply in Frankie the Face’s glass.

He looked rather lovely in his dark suit and striped tie—Logan, of course, not Frankie—and he certainly seemed to be enjoying himself among their guests.

“So, any chance I might talk you into a couple of house calls while you’re in town?” asked Cliff, tilting his highball to Veronica and then to his mouth. “I got a doozy of a client out in Brooklyn...”

“Now, McCormack, you know I’m retired,” said Veronica, “I’m a respectable lady of society now, can’t you tell?”

She held the cocktail tray aside, to better display the lovely green Vionnet she picked for tonight, but Cliff ignored this and looked skeptically out at the guests instead. To his right, Toby Gibbons was leaned against the piano, taking bets on Covington Love in the second.

“Anyway,” Veronica pressed on, “Logan and I are only in New York for a little while. We’re on a train back to California next week.”

“So it’s _not_ true that you’re looking into the Susan Knight murder?”

“What would I want with the Susan Knight murder?” asked Veronica. “Excuse me, won’t you, Cliff?” and she turned to sneak up on her husband, just in time to hear Frankie the Face declare:

“Your wife is one swell broad, Mr. Echolls—did I ever tell ya about the time she sent me up the river?”

“Once or twice,” replied Logan—as charming or more as he’d been addressing that stuffy Count at the Williams’ on Tuesday. “But it’s Christmas, Frank, and didn’t we agree not to hold grudges over who sent whom to Sing Sing?”

“Bah, it was my own faults, see,” said Frankie, waving one pudgy, dismissive hand and then using it to adjust his whiskey-stained tie. “See, I had the rocks in my shoes, see, and...”

“And it’s a neat thing they turned out to be fakes, Frankie, or you might still be _in_ Sing Sing,” Veronica chimed in, before he regaled her husband with a third retelling. Logan accepted a highball from her, but Frankie continued on his champagne.

“See, that’s what I tell ya,” he went on, “A real swell broad. Ronnie Mars’ll give ya a fair shake, that’s what everybody always say about her.” Frankie frowned abruptly, then laid an unsteady hand on Logan’s suit jacket, “Not meanin’ any disrespect of course...”

“Of course,” said Logan.

“A classy dame, too, you know what.”

“Isn’t she, though.”

Veronica decided she had better put an end to this, before Logan went ahead and enjoyed himself too much. She handed him the tray of drinks and instructed, “Hand these out to our guests, _Beloved._..” then went to answer the objecting doorbell.

She was met by a chorale of “Heya, Ronnie!” from half a dozen beat reporters and stringers, clambering inside to shake her hand, snow flaking off their coats.

“Hey, boys! Come on in, shed the chapeaus...”

"Is it true you’re in town on the Susan Knight murder?” asked Joe from the Eagle, before the door was closed behind them.

“Not even a ‘Merry Christmas’ for me first, Joe? Right to business with it?”

“C’mon, give us a scoop,” whined Lou, as they followed her across the suite. “You were pals with her old man, weren’t you?”

“Oh, not much, I worked a case for him in ’31.” She led them toward the kitchen, to where Logan seemed to have disappeared, likely to fortify supplies.

“Is Rooks the one that hired you?” asked Joe from _the Herald_. "The cops think he did it.”

“That’s the cops’ business, isn’t it? No one’s hired me, and I’m not working the case,” said Veronica. “I’ve retired.”

“Aw, don’t give us the run-around, Ronnie...”

“It’s not the run-around, boys, I’m not on the case...”

Logan nearly barreled headlong into her, announcing “Amunition!” and pushing out of the kitchen with a fresh drink tray. “Oh lovely, the _press_.”

“Heya, Echolls,” said Tommy, who knew Logan back in the day.

“Is this the husband?” Lou wanted to know.

“The first one,” said Veronica, earning her a face from Logan.

“Say, your wife’s a special lady, there, Mr. Echolls...”

“I'd noticed. Drink up, lads,” he added, and they nearly emptied the cocktail tray in one go.

“We ought to get food,” Veronica decided, lest half the lot end up unconscious on the floor by midnight. As much as she enjoyed the companions of her misspent youth, she’d rather planned on spending Christmas morning alone with her husband and her dog, not with a hodge-podge of the city’s good natured criminal element.

Gia Goodman found them before any motions could be made in that direction, however: Veronica had seen the socialite make her way in ten minutes ago, but they hadn’t collided just yet. “Ronnie! Ronnie Mars!” squealed Gia, scuttling over so that champagne sloshed on the carpet. She looked half suffocated by the absurd bow around her neckline and had to swat it out of the way to plant a kiss on Veronica’s cheek. “Ronnie, darling, it’s been _years!_ How’s California, is it just divine? I was _devastated_ when I heard I'd missed you at the Williams the other night. I was at the Sinclairs’ and it was wretched. I’ve been chatting with your friends, you know, and they are _fascinating._ Do you know that that man Bootsy over there used to sell phony watches? Do you think Bootsy is his real name?”

It was always impossible to get a word in with Gia, best to let her arrive at the end of her thoughts before attempting.

“You didn’t miss much at the Williams,” Veronica told her, when the moment came, “The chicken was dry.”

“And the potatoes underdone,” agreed Logan, bringing Gia’s eye to him for the first time.

“Oh, goodness, look at _you_!” she said, laying a hand on Logan’s chest. Manhandling Logan seemed to be something of a theme tonight, and Veronica could understand the temptation, the chest in question being broad and appealing in a well-tailored suit, but _all the same_.

“Gia, this is my husband, Logan Echolls. Logan, Gia Goodman.”

He took her hand and _how do you do'd,_ and Gia gasped.

“Husband? _Him_? Golly, Ronnie, I thought he must at least be the chauffeur!" Her large black eyes swept over Logan in fresh assessment that bordered on rapacious. "Somebody or other told me you married a rich old man from California!” Veronica rolled her eyes at the incorrect gossip and at Logan's smug expression, as though being mistaken for a courtesan were high praise.

“That'll teach you to listen to the Sinclairs,” she said.

“They are terrific bores, aren’t they? Madison’s European tour was a bust—she couldn’t find _anyone_ to marry her. She’s trying out Westerners now, their parlor’s a regular _mess_ of cattle-ranchers and steel heirs most evenings. They’re not _too_ bad, but they can’t abide Madison any more than the dukes and lords in Capri could.”

When they’d spent a pleasant few minutes ragging on the maliciously tedious Madison Sinclair, Veronica beckoned Logan away to see to their other guests. She meant to bring up the refreshment situation again, but then Tommy from the Tribune accosted them, and they were thwarted once more.

“What d’ya say, Echolls, you’d let Ronnie poke around the Knight murder, wouldn’t ya?” he asked.

Logan only grinned at her, and Veronica fought a responding smile. She spoke for herself, “I told you, Tommy, I’m retired. I’m a lady of society now. I attend the opera.”

“No one with a right hook like yours should be at the opera,” said Tommy, annoyed.

“If you ask me, the opera could use a few more right hooks,” mumbled Logan.

“What kinda opera you get in _California_ , anyway?”

“We’re in San Francisco, Tom, it’s not as though we live in Hollywood,” Veronica told him. “Logan’s father died a couple of years ago, and we had to go back so he could look after some investments.”

Tommy looked a little abashed. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that...”

“I’m not,” quipped Logan, and Veronica took his hand in preparation of escape.

“I’m retired, Tommy, I haven’t got anything to do with the Knight case.” Breaking free of the fourth estate, she cast her eye about for the drink tray.

“We were going to track down something to eat," Logan reminded her, moments before Veronica could suggest the same.

“True, they'll start rioting soon. Order up some sandwhiches, won’t you?”

Queenie Davis was using the line in the front room, drunkenly attempting to place a long distance call to Tallahassee, so Logan headed for the bedroom and Veronica went along to touch up her lipstick.

“You know that sounds like an interesting case,” said her husband, when they were safely sequestered behind the door. He sat down at the desk and picked up the phone. “ _Room service please.”_ To Veronica, inspecting her reflection in the glass over the dresser, “Why don’t you take it?”

“I don’t have the time,” said Veronica. “I’m much too busy seeing as you don’t lose any of that money I married you for.”

Logan, telephone to his ear, continued to prattle on as though she hadn’t spoken, “Girl mysteriously murdered, nobody knows who did it. They haven’t found any clues, no fingerprints...”

Veronica snorted. “I’ll bet you dollars to dog biscuits that the police haven’t even...” She broke off, catching herself, and Logan grinned again. She scowled and waved a finger at him. “I don’t want to hear anything about it.”

He laughed, then someone must have picked up on the line, as he began to order supper. “Lots of onions on mine,” Veronica instructed.

When he'd hung up the phone, Logan hopped up from the desk and wandered over to her station at the mirror. “Wouldn’t you like to do some detecting every now again?” he asked. “To keep your hand in the game, that kind of thing? You’re a spectacular detective.”

“Tomorrow morning I’ll go out and buy you a whole host of mystery novels,” said Veronica. Nose sufficiently powdered, she turned round to face Logan's unimpressed pout. "The Nob Hill crowd would _love_ that, wouldn’t they? Logan Echolls’s _working_ wife.”

He slid his arms around her waist and dropped a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll slug ‘em if they say _one_ word.”

“Oh, you would.” She adjusted his tie, but before she could conjure up another argument, there was a crash—followed by an awful racket of _ooohs_ —from the next room. “Good God, what now?”

Logan held her there for a moment, smirking. “Ah, Ronnie, I love you.” He pressed his lips to hers for long seconds, likely mussing her recently adjusted lipstick, to the chagrin of exactly _no one_. He pulled back again, “Because you know such _lovely_ people.”


End file.
